Lost and Found
by miss.ouiser
Summary: Whatever happened to that dressing gown? T or M-, depending on your personal sensibilities.


"Jean?" No answer. "Jean!" A little louder this time. That did it; Jean came bustling towards Lucien's bedroom, wiping her hands on her apron, and was greeted with a robust "Bloody hell!"

"All right, all right, what's the problem?" She stopped short on the threshold at the sight that greeted her. Lucien had emptied the entire contents of his wardrobe onto his bed, and was proceeding to rifle through his dresser, tossing items aside onto the floor. "What on earth are you doing?"

"I can't find my dressing gown," he answered, straightening up with an awful mustard cardigan in his hands. "I've been looking for the past half-hour, and I've torn this place apart." Lucien deposited the cardigan onto the bed along with the rest of it. He touched his forehead with his thumb and forefinger in that way he had, gently rubbing, leaving his hair untouched. Jean loved his hair, and she fixed her gaze upon it, resolutely determined not to look at the expanse of skin beneath his unbuttoned shirt collar, or the way his muscles in his forearms were so tantalizingly on display below his rolled-back shirtsleeves. No, hair was much safer, even if she wanted nothing more than to drag her fingers through it as she silenced his tirade with the expert application of her lips onto his.

"Jean?" Lucien was standing with his hands on his hips, looking at her with a touch of concern.

"What? Oh, yes, your dressing gown. You can't find it?" Jean tried and failed to act like she was paying attention to his problem.

Lucien gave her one of those looks he reserved for Charlie or Bill Hobart or Patrick Bloody Tyneman when they were being deliberately thick. Jean ignored it.

"Well, where did you last see it?" Another look; okay, she deserved that one. "I meant, do you remember the last time you wore it?"

"It was before…everything…" Lucien waved his hand in the air in a vague manner "…with Mei Lin. Two, three weeks ago, perhaps?" He gave a frustrated sigh. Jean felt a little sorry for him.

"Well, I'm sure it will turn up," she said brightly, and returned to the kitchen.

Lucien was left staring after her (that she really did have an adorable wriggle to her walk registered somewhere in his brain), somewhat dumbfounded at both her non-answer and her apparent expectation that he clean up after himself.

A week went by with no sighting or mention of the dressing gown. Lucien was kept busy with patients and police work and the presence of their boarder, and he and Jean found little time to restart their aborted courtship.

One evening Lucien can home to find a new dressing gown hanging in his wardrobe. Well, it was more of a bathrobe, really. Unlike his black silk with the gold silk-screening, this was a serviceable French terrycloth, navy blue with some white piping as an accent around the cuffs and collar. It was well-made and functional and completely unlike his dressing gown. Lucien wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

"Jean?" He made his way to the kitchen this time, where Jean and Charlie were busy making dinner.

"Yes? Oh, I see you've found it. What do you think?" Jean looked at him expectantly.

"Well…um…yes. It's perfectly adequate, I suppose, and it fits perfectly. But…"

Charlie bent his head over the potatoes he was peeling, suddenly engrossed in his task.

"' _But_ '? You don't like the color?" Jean was chopping carrots, and Lucien eyed the knife warily. Charlie never looked up; the potatoes were obviously fascinating.

"No, the color is fine. It's just, well; I still want to know what happened to my old dressing gown." Lucien's earnest attempt to keep from sounding petulant only partially succeeded.

"Well, it's gone missing, and that's all there is to it." Jean suddenly found her carrots as fascinating as Charlie found his potatoes, fixing her eyes upon them while studiously avoiding Lucien's.

"But…"

"Maybe Mrs…Mei Lin took it?" Charlie offered hopefully. "You did give her your room while she was here. Maybe she needed a robe and forgot to give it back?"

Lucien knew for a fact that Mei Lin did not have his robe, as the memory of what she was wearing that night she called him to her hotel room was still fresh in his mind. But perhaps Mei Lin had taken it to remember him by? It didn't seem like something she would do, but people change. Lucien was all too well aware of that.

Realizing that he probably wasn't going to get any further with Jean on the subject, Lucien harrumphed his way back to his surgery, depositing the offending bathrobe in his bedroom.

Safely out of earshot, Charlie questioned Jean further. "You know where that dressing gown is, don't you?"

"Pass me those onions please, Charlie." Jean never looked up.

It wasn't mentioned again, but Lucien couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something (and not just the dressing gown). Normally, he would talk to Jean, who would usually shine some no-nonsense light on the subject which would help to clear up everything. But, in this instance, Jean was part of the problem. So Lucien was left to fret by himself. He had made up his mind to bring it up one last time at dinner the following evening.

"Jean…" The phone rang.

"I'll get it." And she did. "I'll tell him, Superintendent."

It was going on two a.m. when Lucien finally dragged himself in through the kitchen door. He had been called to a crime scene at Lake Wendouree, where a body had been found partially submerged in the rushes. Upon arriving, it was discovered that the dismembered remains of a second victim were underneath the first. What followed were hours of searching in the mud and muck for body parts. As night fell and the temperature dropped, it started to rain. Lucien arrived home soaked to the bone and filthy dirty. He deposited his mud-caked shoes and socks in the sunroom and made his way to his bedroom, grabbed his robe, and climbed the stairs to the bathroom, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and some sleep.

On the landing, Lucien automatically looked down the hall towards Jean's room, a habit he had developed over the past year (or two). Thinking she would be long asleep, he was pleasantly surprised to see her door ajar and a faint light spilling out into the hallway. Change of plans: the shower could wait. He quietly made his way down the hall to her room. He lifted his hand to rap softly on the door, but was stopped by the vision that lay on the bed.

The room was bathed in a soft pink glow from the lamp on the bedside table. Jean lay asleep on top of her bedspread, her hair a glorious mess across the pillow. A slight breeze from the open window gently tried to rearrange the curls. Lucien had no time to dwell on that, however, because his mind was trying to process the sight of Jean wearing his dressing gown. His missing dressing gown.

It was, of course, far too big for her. The sleeves came down well over her hands, and her fingers were clasping the silky material in a firm grip, as if she never wanted to let go. She had wrapped her arms across her chest, as if giving herself an embrace, pulling the silk taut across her back. One hand lay on her shoulder, barely brushing her cheek.

Lucien allowed his eyes to drift down her body, saw the way his gown draped across her hips and thighs, and followed her pale, smooth calf to where it ended in a bare foot, toes adorned with vermilion polish. He tried to recall if he had ever seen her bare feet before, but his mind was too busy absorbing the fact that she wore nothing underneath. He was a physician, a surgeon, and he had seen a lifetime's worth of bodies hidden beneath a sheet. He knew what he was looking at.

Jean was naked except for his dressing gown. His gown, caressing her bare skin.

He did not realize he had left the doorway, but he found himself kneeling by her bed, unable to do anything but gaze at her. A part of him urged retreat, to stop his voyeuristic endeavor, to behave like a gentleman. But he ignored those voices, hoping only to imprint this image on his brain for the rest of his life.

He was aware of her perfume, mingled with the scent of his after-shave and the faintest traces of tobacco and whiskey. It was intoxicating, and Lucien felt the blood pounding in his ears at such an alarming volume he feared it would wake her.

As if in answer, Jean opened her eyes. Lucien froze, tried and failed to marshal any coherent thoughts into an apology, unable to do anything but continue to look at her.

She smiled at him. "You're here."

He swallowed hard and nodded imperceptibly, not wanting to break the spell. Jean reached up and touched his face, caressing his cheek. "I was afraid I'd lost you forever," she said softly.

Lucien brought his hand up to hers, to where it rested on his cheek, lightly tracing a pattern. He felt her pull him towards her, felt her breath tickle his lips just before they met hers in the sweetest kiss he had ever known.

Time passed: a minute, an hour, it didn't matter. Lucien knew an eternity would be insufficient to kiss her like this. He tried to keep it light, afraid of overwhelming them both. He moved his lips over hers, pressing her gently into the pillow, deepening the kiss just a fraction. Her lips were unimaginably soft, and he found his free hand entwined in her hair.

Lucien gradually broke the kiss, pulling back to look into her eyes, worried that he had allowed things to go too far. His fears were unfounded:

Jean was fast asleep.

Lucien groaned inwardly, and then shook his head at the absurdity of it. It was a shame, really, that only one of them would remember it.

Lucien took her hand from his cheek, turning it over and placing a chaste kiss upon the palm before laying it on the pillow beside her. He extricated himself from his position on the floor, careful not to disturb her, thinking his shower would need to be a bit cooler than he originally wanted. Before straightening up, he bent over to whisper in her ear:

"You can keep the robe. I like it better on you."


End file.
